6Apr 14

Imagine YOU have been appointed (time-travelling) decider on the 1997 multi-artist version of Perfect Day?

Who would you keep? Who would you drop? Who would you draft?

Assume you have all the budget you could possibly need, and all the persuasive powers to cut through shyness (or else tell the story of who you think you’d fail to coax in…)

Is it still a lobbying ad for the BBC? Is it an ad for the BBC today (as opposed to 15+ years ago)? Is it something else entirely? You curate and you explain!

Would you strive for:
less of the wrong kind of cool (paging wichitalineman)?
less of the wrong kind of soul (paging punctum)?
less of the wrong kind of teenybop (paging puking purplekylie)?
less of the wrong kind of rap (paging everyone!)?less of the wrong kind of reap!
less metal? (ok can’t actually be less metal i don’t think)
less repeat appearance-y?
less top-of-the-range nobbers phoning it in? (YES s/b FEWER SHUT UP)
less quilty pleasure (more actual real pluralism)? (yes i said QUILTY SHUT UP)
less non-amazing?
less unappealing to YOU THE CURATOR? (be bold! be interesting!)
less 90s? (go wild! you can after all travel in time)

List suggestions and manifestos in the thread and we will take it to RIGOROUS POLL SCIENCE

And under the cut, the 29 artists in the BBC’s original, just to remind everyone:Lou Reed: Just a perfect day, drink sangria in the parkBono: And then later, when it gets darkSky of Morcheeba: We go homeDavid Bowie: Just a perfect daySuzanne Vega: Feed animals in the zooElton John: Then later a movie too, and then homeBoyzone: Oh, it’s such a perfect dayLesley Garrett: I’m glad I spent it with youBurning Spear: Oh, such a perfect dayBono: You just keep me hanging onThomas AllenYou just keep me hanging onBrodsky Quartet: (instrumental link)Heather Small: Just a perfect dayEmmylou Harris: Problems all left aloneTammy Wynette: Weekenders on our ownShane McGowan: It’s such funYoung Musician of the Year Sheona White: (instrumental link)Dr John: Just a perfect dayDavid Bowie: You made me forget myselfRobert Cray: I thought I was someone elseHuey: Someone good — yeahIan Brodie: Oh, it’s such a perfect dayGabrielle: I’m glad I spent it with youDr John: Oh, such a perfect dayEvan Dando: You just keep me hanging onEmmylou Harris: You must keep me hanging onCourtney Pine & BBC Symphony Orchestra: (instrumental break)Brett Anderson: You’re going to reap just what you sowVisual Ministery Choir: Reap! reap! reap!Joan Armatrading: You’re going to reapLaurie Anderson: Just what you sowVisual Ministery Choir: Reap! reap! reap!Heather Small: You’re going to reap just what you sow — yeahVisual Ministery Choir: Reap! reap! reap!Tom Jones: Oh, you’re going to reap just what you sowVisual Ministery Choir: Reap! reap! reap!Heather Small: You’re going to reap just what you sow — yeahVisual Ministery Choir: Reap! reap! reap what you sow!Lou Reed: Oh, what a perfect day

Some people I think might be on it if it was recorded now, for better or worse:
- Suggs
- Neil Tennant
- Jools Holland
- Dizzee Rascal/other British rappers
- someone from the world of dance music, maybe Jocelyn Brown? Or does Heather Small count for that?
- Jarvis
- Kylie
- Will.I.Am.

The actors and presenters are deliberate, because this is what the BBC is about now. Doctor Who and Sherlock represent the BBC’s exportable programming. Armstrong & Osman represent BBC’s probably most successful game show. Fiona Bruce serves 2 purposes: News and Antiques Roadshow, which is another way of saying NOW and THEN. Gregg Wallace, Kate Humble and Clare Balding represent Food, Nature and Sport respectively. I’ve thrown in a couple of extra choices to remove repeated lines in some places.

Have the video directed by Danny Boyle. Have the single produced by Trevor Horn.

As Rave ’92 only has 20 different artists on it I will have to think outside the (big fish small fish cardboard) box. SO! For my 140bpm mix I would have the following dudes in front of various Amiga-generated backgrounds:

Courtney Pine has requested he repays a guesting appearance by ditching the orchestra and replace it with his old collaborative pal Mike (sorry Michael) Oldfield for the instrumental bit. (In no way is Oldfield allowed to sing).

So sax, double speed guitar (a loon or too) with added Humphrey Lyttleton on trumpet for services rendered over the decades.

Meanwhile Sparks has demanded to be included, mistakenly believing they have have owned the BBC since 1994.

It strikes me that Stephin Merrit with the sorts of vocalist line-ups (including St Et’s Cracknell) he assembles on his The Sixths records could do a nice job, as could the larger indie conurbation around Broken Social Scene (Metric’s version is OK).

I don’t see that it needs to be done again, and it shouldn’t have been done in the first place since it symbolises the unappealing mix of fragile ego and schoolmasterly hectoring which characterises the BBC the most. Doing this now would indicate that the BBC is worth saving, and I don’t think it is; repeatedly it runs away from any chances it might take – hey, let’s commission a rather interesting new sitcom on BBC3 and then bury it at half past midnight because we’re afraid, thus finding a handy excuse for winding the station down – and, more seriously, it has this fatal tendency to close in on itself just when it needs to open out most. It lied about Mike Harding being sacked (a certain former 5 Live football commentator probably got paid more money in six months than Harding did in ten years, complete with commemorative 50-years-in-broadcasting “salute”; and let’s not mention Radio 2 devoting an entire weekend to a broadcaster just before he got arrested), it tried to deny stuff about you-know-who for as long as possible; it continues to play unplayable records (the FULL version of Jive Bunny’s “Let’s Party” on POTP) because it guesses no one will listen; it has a jazz show whose D-list celebrity presenter contrives to play as little jazz as possible and makes out he doesn’t know who Peter Clayton was, it has a crass and terrible Sounds Of The Eighties show with a presenter who talks to her listeners as though they are two-year-olds with Down’s syndrome. And this morning 6Music, a station whose publicly funded remit is to play stuff other stations don’t, played “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire, which you could probably have found on six or seven other stations on the dial at the same time. It has a “news” service which pumps out nothing but state propaganda, under the supervision of a former News International panjandrum. It drools itself over a minority party leader with no seats in Parliament but says nothing about other minority parties who do have MPs.

And it has grotesquely pretentious “advertisements” or “trailers” which probably cost more than some 6Music broadcasters have earned in total over the last ten years. So, another excuse for a hypocritical plea/threat for protection money? No thank you.

It’s a bit of a queasy concept all round. Perhaps it would be better if all the participants were replaced by Sky Bet League Two players. Oxford United could certainly do with the leg-up at the moment :-(

Imagine YOU have been appointed (time-travelling) Director-General of the 1992 BBC instead of John Birt. Who would you keep? Who would you drop? Who would you draft? What would you do that Birt didn’t? What he did do that you would do different?

This deserves a separate post, really. Whether the BBC is salvageable or not (it still does some things well, but too many of punctum’s points hit home), I think there’s a strong tactical and strategic case for starting a public discussion of what it or its successor(s) OUGHT to be doing, and not just for various kinds of music. Actually setting a want-want-need stall out.

(Perhaps not such a strong tactical and strategic case for starting the discussion on FT, of course.)

Only people who have been on The Voice and other such formats directly ripped off commercial competitors should be featured and the cover should be an almost totally straight re-reading, as a comment on the originality of much of the BBC’s output.

Hmmm…I dunno. I normally dig Bowie’s artful sincerity but he seemed a bit like a schoolboy trying to crack his mates up without getting in trouble himself. I will watch it again and inevitably admit you are right!

About the Author

Duke of the Rotten Underfelting of All Culture, Marquis of the Mothed Marches, gorgeous as the fifth moon and terrible as a tummy with hammers, i bind your gnomes to slake my bed: ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR

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